I woke up at 6.15am, and I slept for less than 4 hours this morning. I got up early to do violin practice because I didn't want to end up suffering at night. I'm still wondering how I got the motivation to climb out of my bed and dig up my violin. I closed all the windows and the door. I was just short of sound proof walls for a concert hall experience. Imagine the heat. Violin practice should just become a sport. If I practice too hard, I get a muscle ache around the upper arm where people usually have to lift weights to get the effect.
After the morning exercise, I immediately took a shower. Jean slept through the whole live concert. My neighbours who had just woken up must have thought it was just a bad dream.
Music in the morning. I was unusually alert and rather responsive. This is the wonder of violin practice at the crack of dawn. I spent the rest of the day playing with Jensen and Jerome, enjoying the simplistic side of life as I pretended to get shot by a lego gun (and die), drew weird cars and tried to revise.
Jensen is getting nerdy and lamer by the day. Too much GEP in his head (no, jk. I have no grudges against smart people). Jerome accidentally dropped a strand of noodle on his chair. While picking it up...
Jerome: I'm going pick up this noodle!
Jensen: And then drop it onto the floor, right? Haha... Drop it onto the floor, right? Geddit? Flouride!
Mom and dad came home a while ago. They brought back big load of food. Yea, the weather's really warm, but I don't think we'll be facing a famine anytime soon.
They recounted getting caught for speeding in Malaysia. A policeman stopped them, but instead of issuing the speeding ticket, he insisted on them paying him 50 ringghit and he would let them off. Mom and dad didn't have much of a choice, and they also didn't know where to pay the summon, so they accepted the bribery. I was quite stunned when I knew about it. Morally, it's wrong. But looking at their case, I'm not sure if it would be right or wrong. Mom and dad didn't mind the speeding ticket, but after all, the policeman insisted on the bribery.
Corruption is really a problem in developing countries. The fact is that it's inevitable, yet it's an important factor in determining a country's stability. That policeman was already probably getting a meager salary from his job. That 50 ringghit would probably ease his financial burden for a few days, and so he found it more worthwhile than dutifully reporting the crime and not pocketing the summon. I can look at it from a few perspectives.
1. By accepting the bribery, mom and dad might have just helped a policeman who may have really needed the extra 50 ringghit. In this point of view, it's about compassion, sympathy and somewhat a charitable act.
2. By accepting the bribery, mom and dad have just allowed more corruption to destroy the legal system. It's not "right", according to the law. Though they faced a consequence (having to pay) for their "crime", it wasn't really addressed to the right party. In that way, it may have been like stealing money to give to the poor.
I'm still not sure about which stand I'm taking. In ethics, there's something called "Duty Ethics", where the moral standard is set according to what the law says, no room for special cases. I often end up taking that stand. It may be partly due to my strong taste for structure and discipline.
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